What Is the Bitcoin Reference Really About?

Published on by Cointele | Published on

Over the last few years, United States President Donald Trump's tweetstorms have become a peculiar yet amusing feature of American public life.

The historic series of tweets that constituted the first-ever public comment on cryptocurrencies by a sitting U.S. president didn't seem to fit the same mold.

Earlier on the day, when cryptocurrencies incurred President Trump's wrath, Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve's chair, admitted before the Senate Banking Committee that a globally entrenched cryptocurrency could potentially render existing reserve currencies obsolete.

Finally, four days after Trump's tweets, Treasury Secretary Steven Muchin echoed the president's concerns almost verbatim during a press conference during which he contended that cryptocurrencies posed a "National security threat." At that point, it became difficult not to see the messages coming out of the administration as a coordinated viewpoint.

Preston Byrne, a pro-Trump blockchain lawyer, was among the president's supporters who expressed doubts over the message's authorship, adding, "This is more likely coming from the Treasury Department - that'd be Secretary Mnuchin - and at the behest in particular of the banks." The Verge's Elizabeth Lopatto questioned Trump's understanding of the subject matter altogether, "I do not believe for an instant that the president could define a cryptocurrency, explain what bitcoin is, or even know what Libra is supposed to be."

Although some analysts claimed that it was not President Trump's remarks that had triggered the reversal, both the timing and steepness of the decline correspond to what one could interpret as a sell-off in the wake of major negative news.

Jeremy Allaire, the co-founder and CEO of financial services company Circle, called the development "Possibly the largest bull signal for BTC ever" while Forbes' Billy Bambrough observed that Trump "Has inadvertently catapulted bitcoin and cryptocurrencies into a presidential issue and given valuable recognition to the burgeoning bitcoin technology."

Gab, a social medium notorious for becoming a haven for public figures exiled from more mainstream platforms for the extremity of viewpoints they expressed, tweeted back at the president their defense of Bitcoin as "Free speech money." It remains unknown if President Trump is aware of the existence of this brand of his supporters, maybe someone crypto-friendly who has his ear - e.g., Mick Mulvaney had tipped him off.

The kind of shallow criticism that President Trump offered doesn't hold any water when faced with any systematic counterargument.

In a post for The Merkle, George McDonaugh rightfully observed that what is money and what is not is highly context-dependent, saying "Cigarettes are money in prisons, bullets are money in war zones and bitcoin is money in Venezuela." Borderless and globally priced, Bitcoin can be money in many ways fiat currencies are not, if given a chance.

x